There’s an advertising campaign for the Swiss Alps at the moment urging people to go hiking there ‘and find the route back to yourself’. As Theresa May treks through the mountains of Switzerland on her annual summer holiday, Tory MPs are wondering what route she might find, or what life-changing ideas she might return with. The Prime Minister’s infamous decision to call a snap election occurred to her while hiking in Snowdonia. A year on from that vote, her problems have only increased — but she has clung on. The question, for her and for her party, is how much longer she clings on for.
The standout achievement of the May premiership has so far been her extraordinary durability. She has repeatedly defied — some would say broken — the laws of political gravity. She blew her majority and survived. She delivered a conference speech that went wrong on every level imaginable, and then easily shrugged off a potential rebellion. She has watched several cabinet members leave under clouds of mishap and scandal. When she said last year that she intended to fight the next election — it’s due in 2022 — it sounded entirely plausible, if not desirable.
But in the past month, there has been a significant shift in the mood in Downing Street. Until fairly recently, those around Theresa May were planning to stay for the long term, talking up their boss’s determination to fight the next election and prove the naysayers wrong. Now they hum a different tune. A number of May’s inner circle privately concede that her departure is not a matter of if but when.
Although most Tory MPs still think that she should steer the party through the final stages of the Brexit agreement — if only to ensure Britain does actually leave — there is a growing consensus that her work will then be finished.
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